Originally Posted by
_ForceD_
BTW...you didn’t really mention it in your OP...but if you aren’t accustomed to swimming in open water you need to do that as soon as possible. I know it’s frozen or too cold right now...so continue swimming in the pool. But get some open water swims in as soon as possible. It may surprise you, but swimming in open water is really different from the pool. I have seen very accomplished high school, and even collegiate swimmers completely freak out in the open water. They decide to give triathlon a try and think “I’m an experienced swimmer. No need to focus on the swim portion of the tri.” And then then get out there and there aren’t any lane lines, they can’t see the bottom, have trouble navigating to swim in a straight line, can’t deal with the brine, water is rougher than the pool, the start and turn are ‘full contact’ swimming, a piece of seaweed touches them and they think they’re being attacked by a shark. And that’s all if they have the nerve to continue swimming.
Dan
This, 100X. Open water in a group(open water, period) can be downright dangerous. I think there should be some kind of Noobie Tri where the first timers all swim in a roped off area back and forth under lots of supervision. They swim for a period of time and get the same time for the swim portion. A whistle blows and they head off for the first transition. A couple of those before they graduate up to a standard tri. Just my opinion.